Best Italian Recipes and Menus

Easy Weeknight Pasta Ideas

When that pasta craving hits, turn to these easy recipes after work. All of them can be prepared in an hour or less — most in about 30 minutes — and most of that time is spent boiling water and cooking your noodles.

Sausage and Radicchio Orecchiette

Gabriele Corcos and Debi Mazar have created a dish that’s sweet, a little spicy and incredibly refreshing — just like their marriage. The sharp notes of mint and red onion are soothed by the mild flavors of pasta and walnuts. The results are as bright and beautiful as the couple.

Red Sauce and Spaghetti

Bright and bold, this super-simple sauce relies on canned tomatoes, garlic and red pepper to create the homestyle flavors that waft through the homes of countless nonnas. Make sure to keep airtight containers on hand to use for any extra sauce.

Debi's Yellow Tomato Lumaconi

Shaped like the shell of a snail, lumaconi pasta allows for its other ingredients to hide within its crevices (meaning each bite can hold maximum flavor). Debi uses sweet yellow tomatoes and frozen peas to create a vibrant dish.

Chuck Hughes' Bolognese

The smells of Chuck’s hearty meat sauce will fill your house, convincing anyone that it’s been simmering all day. In truth, this rich and spicy gravy can be made in an hour (but if you want to pretend it took longer, we won’t tell).

Chicken Sausage Rigatoni in a Spicy Vodka Sauce

The beauty of vodka sauce is that, while it sounds dangerous, it’s really all butter and cream. Sunny Anderson brings on the heat by using a chopped jalapeno, allowing this decadent dish to keep its edge.

Farfalle with Broccoli

Feeling fancy? Tie one on with Giada De Laurentiis’ recipe for bow tie pasta with broccoli. Don’t let the anchovies in this recipe scare you off — they’ll simply add salt (without imparting any sort of fishiness).